


When This is All Over

by seenonlyfromadistance



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, It Chapter Two (2019)
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, a real 'but what if they kissed', kinda book-verse kinda movie-verse kinda just bullshit, kinda fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 05:27:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20558990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seenonlyfromadistance/pseuds/seenonlyfromadistance
Summary: "Uhm, I was thinking," Richie says, feeling the tension all the way down to his fingertips, mere inches from Eddie's thigh, "when this is all over-- When this is all over, I think you should come to L.A."- Richie and Eddie in the hotel after Bowers attacks Eddie, having a moment, taking a chance, making declarations, fuckin smooching -





	When This is All Over

**Author's Note:**

> started writing this before I saw Chapter Two, haven't read the book in a while, but saw that picture of Finn Wolfhard carving at the kissing bridge and just started writing. So probably not compliant with book and definitely not with movie 2 (which I have now seen) but a jumble of both and everything-- and whatever, sometimes you just gotta drink some wine and write a fic in the notes of your phone and then fuckin post it.

Sitting side by side on Richie's hotel room bed-- Richie's, not Eddie's, because Eddie can't be in his room anymore, it's too awful, too frightful-- and Eddie is holding his broken arm just the way he did as a kid. Protective and frightened, holding it tight against his body, staring down at his wrist bending the wrong way. Richie sits next to him, quiet, his hands clutching the edge of the bed. Everything has some long forgotten memory from childhood attached to it now, and this is no exception. The memories come back so hard it's almost painful, sitting on benches in the summer or side by side at the movies, both of them holding the edge of their seats, but neither ever making the move to close the distance. Too scary, even after everything they'd been through. Just sitting side by side, like they are now. Richie feeling the same old fear. 

But Eddie almost died back there, could have been killed. It's unbearable. And even now, with his broken arm... it brings back all the old feelings. Feelings that came back quickly, at first sight in the Chinese restaurant, but still. Feelings. 

"Uhm, I was thinking," Richie says, feeling the tension all the way down to his fingertips, mere inches from Eddie's thigh, "when this is all over--" 

Eddie, still staring down at his broken wrist, pulls a face, a pouting, incredulous disdain. The same face. It's amazing how even after all these years, it's the same face. The face Eddie had pulled against him so many times. Hundreds of times. And this time it means, so clearly, _you really think this will ever be over? Silly Richie, stupid Richie._

"When this is all over, I think you should come to L.A." 

Eddie glances over, still hung up on the _when this is all over_ part. The assumption that any of them will survive it. "Huh?" 

"I think you should come to L.A.," Richie says again, more sure now. "With me. You should come live in L.A." 

He lifts his head, finally, to look at Richie. He blinks. Then: "What are you talking about?"

"You. Me. Sun and Sand." It seems simple, put like that. Simple and easy and nice. But Eddie turns sour. His face goes inward, like when a joke used to go too far. _Beep beep, Richie. Stop fooling, Richie. Richie, be serious_. 

But the fact is, he's never been more serious about anything. It's been a long time, and he's forgotten so much, but now, he can't believe he ever forgot Eddie. How could he have, when Eddie was so much to him? So unbelievably much. He shifts, half turning to face Eddie, his hand on the edge of the bed moving without quite making it to where he wants, but now close enough to be brushing his leg. "I mean it. Eds, I really mean it."

"I've got a life, Rich," Eddie snaps, like that should be the end of it. Unspoken is, _you're being ridiculous_. "You know, a whole thing in New York." 

"Fuck New York. Weather is better out west. Have you ever been? You'd like it." 

Eddie gawps at him, maybe starting to piece together that it's not a joke. That Richie wants him to abandon everything he's built in the last twenty years and move to California. _California_, of all places. But...California is wonderfully far away from Maine. So unbelievably, magnificently far away from Derry.

He stammers, "I've got a business. I mean, a good business, employees, you know, I can't just--"

"Fuck your business!" 

Eddie's forehead furrows, in that hauntingly familiar way. Irritation and affection all mixed up in one. A little pity in the twist of his mouth. Richie might have caught him off guard, but they're back in a familiar pattern. Lightly bullying, Richie pulling Eddie along on some madcap, foolish adventure. Some fantasy to playact out in the barrens. 

Seriously, so seriously it's almost a joke, Eddie says, "Richie, I've got a wife--" 

Which is just about the last straw. Hysterically, Richie explodes. He throws his hands in the air, he bursts out laughing. He’s giggling horribly when he speaks.

"_Fuck_ your wife!" 

And Eddie, sweet, polite, momma's-boy Eddie Kaspbrak, absolutely recoils at this exclamation. It's almost funny, in fact, Richie thinks, it's almost the funniest thing he's ever seen. Eddie recoiling in disgust at the concept of fucking his own wife. That's not it, of course, obviously, obviously Eddie's mad that Richie would disrespect his wife like that. Dismiss her so rudely and so out of hand. Eddie who would never insult a woman, and never abandon someone he made a commitment to, committed himself to. It's not Eddie's way to run away from something like that, from a promise. Never has been. It's why he's back in Derry now, with a broken arm.

But still Richie means it. Fuck that stupid woman he married. Whoever she is, and probably she’s perfectly nice, but Eddie deserves more than _nice_. Deserves someone who knows how brave and amazing he is. Deserves to be held and, and— fuck her. Fuck any her who gets to be near Eddie when Richie doesn’t. Especially a her who sounds suspiciously like Eddie’s mother. 

"No, sorry, that's not..." Richie backpedals. His hand on the bed retreats into his own lap. "I'm sorry. I just... I don't want to forget you. I don't want to forget you again." It's not quite right, not quite enough. Eddie looks back at his broken arm. The others went to find stuff to splint it with; when will they be back? This might be the only moment they have alone together before the end. And once it's over, Richie has a feeling that they'll all drift apart again, and fast. He has to make Eddie promise now, or else he'll demure later. Or else they'll forget, or shrug it off, or... or something else that Richie doesn't want. 

Because what Richie wants is Eddie in his life. After what they'd been through as kids, and after what they're going through now. Needs him. Doesn't want to be without him ever again. 

Loves him.

Still loves him.

"Forget me?"

"Like before. We all left, and we forgot."

"I know." 

"I don't want to forget you again. And if you were nearby... I mean, I couldn't, could I? If you were around. Right next door. Or..." 

_Fuck your wife_. Sitting between them like a weight. 

The panic response: Richie makes a joke. Sort of. 

"Or you could fuck me instead." He couples it with a playful, non-committal shrug, like it's just one of several options on the table. Maybe it doesn't come out quite like he meant. Double meanings. If only he could clarify that he wants Eddie to fuck his brains out without being crude.

This (thank god) breaks the tension. Thank god, _thank god_. Eddie doesn't laugh, exactly, but he huffs and shakes his head a little ruefully and looks back at his busted arm. 

"Richie, come on," he sighs. _Beep beep. Be serious. _"I can't just leave everything. Even if I don't die this week, I just can't walk away."

Richie has the urge to take him by the arms and shake him. If his arm wasn't broken, he might actually be doing it. As it is, Richie puts a hand on Eddie's leg, just barely above the knee. He's touched Eddie thousands of times, hundreds of times, it feels like, in the past two days alone. Taken every opportunity to touch him-- to knock shoulders with him and chuck his arm and shove him and hand him beer and brush fingers over a photograph. But it's never enough. And this isn't enough, though somehow it's more, so much _more_ than anything before.

It's intimate. It's purposeful. It's better than brushing pinkies sitting next to each other on a bench in the park waiting for Bill to show up. It’s... adult and it means something serious.

Eddie stares down at the hand on his knee. Richie stares at Eddie's face. Richie tries to read the thousand thoughts that Eddie must be thinking. The dusty catalogue of memories he must be skimming through. A muscle near his mouth twitches. 

"You can, though. I mean, Eddie, you can leave everything if you want. I'm asking... I mean, I don't want you to leave _me_. I mean I love you.” Embarrassingly, his voice cracks. He has to swallow before saying anything else. “I always have." 

Eddie lifts his eyes. He hasn't moved. His whole body is tense and suspicious. On edge like he's waiting for the punchline. "Always? What does that mean?"

And Richie... well for Richie, it means his entire childhood has a new coloration to it. All those memories he only half-remembered for twenty years, all those jokes about first crushes and first traumas, all coming rushing back. All clear and bright and saturated. Eddie. They met in first grade, and then it was ten years of Eddie, Eddie. Their devastating, horrifying thirteens. Their strange fourteens, waiting for something horrific around every corner. Richie's parents moving away during their fifteens, Richie going with them. Standing around near the quarry the day before he left-- hugging everyone goodbye, Bill and Ben and Mike and Stan, and then holding Eddie a beat longer, and coming away crying. Trying to write letters, but that falling away. And then it all fell away.

But somewhere deep it stayed. And it came back the moment he saw Eddie standing in the back room of the Jade of the Orient. Same face. Same person. Same old feelings. Back in a rush like a kick to the balls. 

"It means I'm in love with you. I love you." 

Eddie blinks. Shifts a little. 

“But you don’t know me.” 

Same little voice. Twenty-seven years later and he’s got the same little voice, same fast way of speaking, spitting out words sharp as razors. Talking, talking, talking. 

“But I do. You’re the same. You’re still Eddie Kaspbrak and I loved you when we were thirteen and I love you now. And if you are different, which you're not, I love you anyway.” 

If Richie ever thought in those terms as a kid (Love, which was so lame), he definitely never said them out loud. Couldn’t have dreamed it. The words, if they occurred in his mind, never could have made it to his mouth. And it wouldn’t have meant the same thing then, even if he did say it. What he means now is that he would die for Eddie if he had to, but he would rather spend his whole life with him instead. Talk to him constantly, sit by him always. Wake up to him and go to sleep to him. Fill his unnecessary prescriptions and sit in waiting rooms on unnecessary doctors visits. Listen while he describes something he read on WebMD. He wants to do all that and more, and more and more, forever. He wants it so much his chest hurts, his whole being is full to bursting with it.

He wants to puke, he loves Eddie Kaspbrak so much. 

An admission: “I carved our initials into the goddamn kissing bridge, I love you so much. I couldn’t say it, but I felt it.” 

Eddie whispers, holding his arm even closer against his chest, “Fuck you.” 

Which, you know, stings. The pain in Richie’s chest takes on a different timbre. 

With shaking breath, he says, “Oh.” Then he moves back on the bed, away from Eddie. He stands. He sits again. 

“Richie,” Eddie says, looking up from his arm. He sounds so sad, so hesitant. “Richie... I...” 

The world goes blurry, and Richie realizes his eyes are full of tears. He hasn’t cried in a long time, but now he can’t stop it. His eyes well up and a tear or two slip down, just two before Richie turns away from Eddie to take off his glasses. Under the pretense of cleaning them he tries to pull himself together. It doesn't work.

What did he expect really? That Eddie would jump into his arms and say, _Oh Richie, take me away from this terrible place and my terrible life! Take me away and ravish me! Love me! Thank god, thank god, I've been waiting!_ As if. Christ, what an idiot. Silly Richie, stupid Richie. 

Beep mother fucking beep, Richie. 

“Uhm,” his voice sounds wrecked. Too tight and too ragged. It’s not fair. Why can't he do anything with dignity? Why is this so hard? Why is going so wrong? “I can go look for painkillers, downstairs, if you want.” 

“I have painkillers.” 

Richie laughs. He can’t help himself. God, that he could help himself. “Of course you do. Doctor Kaspbrak to the rescue, as always.” 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says. It’s so unlike him, to take teasing like that, even really gentle teasing. He always had some retort, even some lame one. Something to spit back. “Richie, come here. Richie, look at me.” 

Richie can’t move. He can’t because then Eddie will see that he’s been crying. Probably his eyes are red. Eddie can’t see that. 

“Where on the kissing bridge?” 

Not the question he expected, Richie startles. It’s been a long time, but he remembers it clear as day. That memory, maybe, never really left him. “On the side nearer to town. On the upper rail. Near one of the posts.” 

R + E

He’d been thinking about it on his walk through town. If it was still there. If anyone had ever looked at it and guessed what it meant. 

“R plus E.” A hand touches Richie's back, light as a feather. “Right? Not like, R and E in a heart, or RE close together. R plus E.” 

Shaking out of his guts, Richie turns, creeping around like there’s some horrible surprise waiting for him. It would be just like that stupid fucking clown to take this agonizing moment and somehow make it worse. But when he turns around it’s just Eddie. Eddie with his broken arm and sad eyes and tight, pinched mouth. There’s no judgement on his face. Less pity than Richie expected. Just the same wonderful face, looking at him expectantly. 

So Richie nods. R plus E. 

“I saw it,” Eddie says. “When I left for college. Long after you’d gone. Just on the way out of town I stopped for a second to look at the river, say goodbye, I guess... and there was this carving. Worn down a little but there. R plus E.” 

“Oh.” 

“I thought about you, then.” Eddie says, like he’s not quite sure. Like the memory is still coming back. “I think... I imagined it was for us. I think.” 

Richie thinks, _what’s happening_? Richie thinks, _wait, huh?_ And then Eddie’s hand, the not broken one, is reaching out. His hand touches Richie's, where it’s limp in his lap. 

“I mean, Richie... I didn't know, I mean... I don't...” 

A deep, primal part of Richie says This is the Moment. Eddie is never going to find the words, but now is the time. Eddie is as good as holding his hand, and as a thirteen year old that’s all he would have needed. 

So, too fast, Richie leans forward. He misses. His mouth lands not cleanly on Eddie’s, not at all, but more on his upper lip, off to a side. Their noses clash a little, and the corner of Richie’s glasses hit cheekbone and go crooked. 

When he tries again, it goes better. Mouth to mouth, their teeth click when Eddie’s drift open. Warm and wet, and Richie feels like he’s floating. He’s giddy. God, he could die right now and be happy. Eddie’s hand clutches his so tightly it hurts. The best pain he’s ever felt. They kiss, they’re kissing, and Richie leans in a little more, puts his hand on Eddie’s thigh. He wants everything from this moment, but most of all he doesn't want it to end. 

Then Eddie jerks away with a curse, the hand that had been on Richie’s disappearing in a flash. 

“Fucking arm,” Eddie mumbles, cradling his broken bones again. “Fuck, fuck.” 

“Oh shit, I’m sorry!” Richie leaps to his feet and goes towards the door. “I’ll go get your painkillers.” Then he whirls back. “I’ll set it for you.” 

“What the fuck? No!” 

“It’ll hurts less once it’s in place. I’ll pop it back into place.” 

“No!” Eddie screeches, throwing himself back on the bed to escape. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare fucking touch me!” 

Richie stops with his hands outstretched, and Eddie freezes too. They’ve been here before, in his moment. 

“I did it before,” Richie slowly says. The memory of that afternoon had been there before, but now it clarifies to a bright, sharp point. The clown across that shitty kitchen, taunting them, Richie screaming, Eddie screaming, Richie holding Eddie's face, trying to get him to look away. Painfully bright, that part. Snapping his arm back into place later floats in after the clear, bright vision of Eddie looking at him in abject horror. First Eddie, then his arm.

“Please don’t do it again.” 

“I would never hurt you, Eds.” He means it in all the ways it’s possible to mean it. “Never. I love you.” 

Now that he’s said it once, it feels despicably easy to say it more. It feels like the only truth he’s ever known.

Eddie, half sprawled across the bed, stares at him a little like he’s never seen him before. Like he’s seeing something brand new. Maybe like he finally believes what Richie's been saying.

“I’ll get the pills.” 

Richie spins on one heel and as good as throws himself out of the room. 

The hallway is so quiet it’s genuinely creepy. Richie can hear his heart pounding in his chest, loud as a marching band. Eddie. His mouth. Kissing him. Missing him. His hand feels hot from being held, and Richie numbly goes down the hall, finds Eddie’s room, grabs the bag of medicines out of the bathroom as quick as he can (avoiding the puddles and drips of blood, avoiding the broken glass, avoiding the horrible lump lying still near the dresser) and dashes back out into the hall. 

It’s not a long walk back, but all the way Richie imagines the life they could have together. He spins lifetimes in the length of twenty-seven feet. Eddie by the sea. Eddie driving in traffic. Eddie with a kid in his arms, anxious and ready to hand it back. Eddie pulling a loose thread off his sleeve. A lifetime of little moments Richie wants to live in and savor and _have_. 

When all this is over. First all this has to be over.

Hand on the door handle, a scream comes from inside. Muffled and stifled, but a scream. Richie’s heart plunges into his stomach. 

“Eddie!” He screams, screams and screams, about ready to scream forever. He shoulders the door open (and it opens easily, too easily), and charges inside to find— nothing. Everything is fine. Eddie is sitting up on the edge of the bed, his arm against his chest. 

“Jesus christ,” Richie pants, “what the fuck happened? Are you okay?” 

Eddie lifts his broken arm. “I put it back myself.” 

And yeah, the arm is straight, no longer bent at a wrong, awful angle. 

“It does feel better,” Eddie says with an affable, embarrassed shrug. 

Relief washes over Richie has suddenly as the panic had. Dropping the bag of pills by the door, he as good as runs to Eddie, crossing to him in three steps, puts both hands on the sides of his face and kisses him, hard and pressing and needful. 

“Fuck, I could kiss you.”

Eddie laughs, and Richie can feel it against his face and in his entire body. It sets his blood glittering.

“I think you just did, you asshole.” 

“I was so scared. I leave you alone for one second and...” Their foreheads are touching, which is about as intimate and magnificent a thing as Richie could ever imagine. “I could kiss you.” 

“Okay.” 

“I just might do it, too.” 

Eddie smiles, and Richie feels that too. 

So he does. He stays standing, leaning over Eddie, and kisses him as soundly as he knows how. Wants to make Eddie feel loved, feel cherished, feel held and valued. In the space of one kiss, he wants Eddie to know everything he feels and has felt and could feel in the future. He wants Eddie to know. Wants Eddie to know it deep in his bones. Wants him to feel it so strongly that there'll be no forgetting it later. No leaving Derry and letting it drift away. He kisses Eddie like one kiss could tattoo onto his soul all Richie's love and all Richie's devotion. So neither of them will ever forget, or doubt, Richie's love.

Eddie groans, a little, in a good way, and Richie feels his entire soul burst into fireworks.

Finally, they part. Richie, panting, goes to collect the bag of prescription bottles. He dumps them all out onto the bed and together he and Eddie sort through them. 

“No, that’s for anxiety... that one’s for skin irritation... that one too... no, Richie, christ, that’s Adderall, fucking read the label.” 

They laugh and finally find some high dose painkillers that Eddie got prescribed after some kind of dental surgery. He doesn’t go into it. 

“Are these fucking opiates? Damn, Eds, you’re a real druggie, huh?” 

“Fuck you, dude.” Eddie says, without any real vitriol, before he pops the pills into his mouth, dry, and swallows them. 

“Shit, man.” Richie takes one for himself, and one of the anxiety pills, and goes to the bathroom for water. Eddie’s been taking pills his whole life; Richie couldn’t dry swallow a pill to save his own life. He would've done better to crush it up and snort it.

“When do you think the others will get back?” Eddie asks as Richie comes back to sit on the edge of the bed once again. 

“Soon, I guess. Or never, because it got them.” 

“Don’t say that.”

“Sorry. Jesus, I wish we could’ve just taken you to a hospital. Get a real cast and... you’d be safe in a hospital.” 

Eddie shakes his head with a resigned drop of his shoulders. The weight of the world on him. “Not in Derry. We’re not safe anywhere in Derry.” 

“Yeah...” 

What are they supposed to do now? There isn’t anything to talk about, there’s just the looming horror of their situation, the sense that they’ll die at any second, the fact that they’ve missed twenty-some years of each other’s lives. There isn't anything to talk about because there's everything to talk about. Their whole lives.

But there’s time, Richie thinks. There’s going to be time. When all this is over, they’ll be able to catch up on everything. Every embarrassing college story, every romantic date gone wrong, every awful set bombed in a basement, every car accident, every long drive to a gig, every single lost moment discussed and catalogued. Years and years to discuss years and years. 

Eddie seems to be thinking the same thing, because he says, out of nowhere, “I’ll think about L.A. I’ll think about it.” 

“That’s as good as a yes, to me. That's a yes. I’ll take it.” Richie puts his hands on Eddie’s knee. Easy as pie. 

“You’ll take it?” 

“I’ll take you anywhere, Eddie baby. Anywhere at any time in any way you’ll have me.” 

“Jesus, that’s... that’s... I can’t believe you would say that to me.” 

“You’re blushing. You like it.” With his free hand, he wriggles a finger into Eddie’s ear. Eddie flinches away, screaming, laughing, howling, and Richie keeps wriggling his finger against Eddie’s ear, his cheek, feeling how warm and soft his skin is. 

It’s the happiest he’s been in years. Maybe in twenty-seven years.

“Richie!” Eddie is howling, laugh-screaming. “Richie, stop!! Stop, oh my god!” And he does stop, but he leaves his hand at Eddie’s cheek, his forearm resting on Eddie’s shoulder, one finger idly tracing the shell of Eddie’s ear. 

A life like this. Little moments like this. And Richie could be happy. Eddie smiling shyly, blushing, but not shoving Richie away, not mad at him. So Richie leans in to press a kiss to Eddie’s cheek. 

And Eddie smiles, and Richie can feel it. 

And when all this is over they’ll go to L.A., and be happy in the sun and sand. Together. Finally free of all this bullshit and finally together.

_Finally_, Richie thinks. _Fucking Finally._ Finally they'll have what they deserve.

**Author's Note:**

> bill hader said gay rights but pennywise is homophobic


End file.
